Sheer Futility

Sisyphus had it easy
Job security
Rolling that rock
Up and down that hill
Until technology
And other ingenuity
Found a way to automate
Sheer futility

Then Sisyphus must
Negotiate his lower wage
For lesser productivity
On history’s page
And diversify his rock carrying
To another fertile stage
In golden fields philosophers
Find their cares are not assuaged
Another allegory
Relegated to
Sheer futility

Sisyphus on the
Unemployment queue
Might feel some brief
Liberation
Standing there with me and you
But what of the philosophers?
What can those thinkers do?
There’s a shortage now
Of clear morality
And the human condition
What’s that supposed to be?
It’s just dust upon a hill
Of sheer futility

(c) Helen Valentina 2014, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

A Whale Of A Sale But It’s All True I Swear By My Tattoo

Check out Misha’s latest book and sale!! yayay!!

MishaBurnett's avatarmishaburnett

CatskinnerSmall Click To Buy!

CannibalSmall Click To Buy!

To celebrate my launching of The Worms Of Heaven I am putting Catskinner’s Book and Cannibal Hearts on sale for 99 cents each this week.  In addition Catskinner’s Book will be featured on EReader News Today tomorrow, Wednesday the 3rd.

So we’ll see how this works.  I don’t often ask for reblogs, but I would appreciate it if you would see fit to help me spread the news.  With my third James & Catskinner novel I feel that I have an actual body of work.

Worms of Heaven by Misha Burnett Click To Buy!

I did what I set out to do, which is to create a new mythos, new monsters, new magic, a cosmology based on some fairly outre sources and my own imagination.  It’s been hard to get any traction since the world in my books is difficult to explain–I can’t really say that it’s “just like” anything else out…

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The Long Walk

Image credit: www.bbc.com

Image credit: http://www.bbc.com

The long walk that afternoon
You arm strung casually
across my shaking shoulders
Our bodies close enough as though our heat
could banish every cold

This memory still resonates
An intimacy made of time
and lies that glowed like holy truths
along that dusty beaten path

Your head was bent toward my own
Your attention still and calm
The pace of walking overflowed
cascading, brittle charm
And while the storm clouds gathered
not a whisper of alarm

No rhyme can hold is metre
for each metre that we walked
Each step we found propelled us
to a precipice as yet unseen
A kiss at daybreak might have saved
more than our lives
More than we could bear

And yet I see you waiting there
A sentinel against the evening sky
to wrap me in this memory
of that long walk on that cold afternoon
before the ice began

(c) Helen Valentina 2014, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Lake House

Image credit: wallpapersdb.org

Image credit: wallpapersdb.org

Peaceful waters
Cathedral halls
I’ve been here before
Sunlight flickers
Shadows linger
At the kitchen door
Birds flutter
In their group now
Race across the water
I am breathing
Full awake now
Sunshine’s daughter

At the lake house
All these memories
Like sweet ghosts will linger
It’s a promise
Like this ring now
On my slender finger
While light shadows
Every morning
Rippling water
I’m at home now
Safe and hidden
Sunshine’s daughter

(c) Helen Valentina, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Fifteen minutes – for Speed Challenge, Prompt 70

I followed mindlovemisery’s lead yesterday for the 10 poems in 20 minutes challenge and found it a really mind opening, artistic release. So why not try again, like her, this time with a different time limit? I went for 15 minutes, starting…..now…

1
The spiral staircase
Eco-skeletal
spine of this building
Depths dipped below
freezing point
to a primordial centre
Do I dare follow
the stairs ever down
or do I turn away?

2
I was a child of the wild
I did not know boundaries
I did not know fear
This is then
true innocence
and true freedom
all at once
I did not know this then
And as I grew
That child was gone

3
You thought you could
trap me like a butterfly
in your cocoon
Another way to transform
to something other
that which you had painted
in that little room
where you hide

4
I flew away
On gossamer wings
And laughed a little
At you
So we are sworn enemies now
And you will deny me thrice
Before even this night
is through

5
A baseline fracture
Hair thin
Running from my ear
To the forehead
Like a memory
Of brutality
Too fragile
And too fine
To announce its presence
This is what you left me
A scar too precise
For anyone to see
But me

6
Life is a carnival
I am a puppet
on its stage
I will bow to you
if you will pay the price
Otherwise
turn away
sawdust on your shoes
and find another delight

7
Count your words
You only have so many
in this life
Before they run out
try to say
something that matters
or at least something
that nearly makes sense

8
Laughing clown you are
with your pretend tears
Crocodile skin
Deep within
I know your soul
better than you
And it’s reptile
through and through

9
If you will not surmount your fears
then I cannot climb
upon your battlements
and hold your hand
You’ll run from me
And cry
And I will be
alone

10
Learning my times tables
the sunlight falling
through a schoolroom window
The sleepy buzz that afternoon
I little knew
In those simple sums
lay the eternal secret
of us all

11
Cross my threshold
It is tired of vacancy
It grows weary just of me
And would welcome
Some company
As would I

Come deep within
This house a shrine it seems
Lost in a broken dream
And nothing is what
it seems
Not even you

12
I’m hovering
Before the day
Hoping it
Will go away
Hoping dream’s
Sweet disarray
Takes me far
Too far today

13
All these holy men
Walk barefoot
On harsh sand
The paths they break
Like footprints
Of design
And yet
I follow careful
Footstep by footstep
But all I find
Is dirt

14
This much
And no more
Will I say
This much
And no more

(c) Helen Valentina 2014, All Rights Reserved

Fifteen minutes done! Check out the prompt at: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/prompt-70-speed-challenge/

And join in – this is one of the more fascinating, challenging and fun prompts so far!! 🙂 🙂

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Savage Hearts

 

What made you think that I would be
A chalice for your fears and dreams?
Insanity flows far downstream
Lost in complexity

There is no place where we may be
Our contradictions are our core
Philosophers would love us more
For false simplicity

What made you think that I would try
To reach within your broken shell?
This road to heaven led to hell
The truth served but a lie

We’re songs to make the angels cry
There is no peace here ever more
We lived this love by tooth and claw
And savage hearts must die

(c) Helen Valentina 2014, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Poetry, Water | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

10 Poems in 20 Minutes

1
Still free-floating
from that star sprinkled night
This morning in a café
I saw the face of God
on a colourful postcard
He was winking

2
Counting the coins
before you throw them
into this gilded
wishing well
A mathematical exercise
in futility

3
Last night I wept
for days so long gone
The withered pages
of their history
have turned and curled with age
And I brief recalled
a smile on a lonely street
A rag-tag boy
who might have been a friend
but turned away
And memories become
nothing but cues
for necessary tears

4
I said
the devil made me do it
But that was perhaps
a little dark lie
Still it’s true enough
He influenced me
a little in his way
and that is perhaps
much the same thing

5
When darkness came
to this humble house
he wore a long dark coat
And he would smoke in the corner
contemplating his next
act of casual savagery
He had a handsome face
as evil often will
and the softest voice
like an angel fed on ash
And at last I felt his lash
And from there I knew
From there I knew

6
Steeples cut the sky
on a grey September morning
like a silhouette of a memory
of tragedies far away
This peaceful place
is slumbering
A giant resting
before he wakes and shakes
the trembling day
And high above the raven soars
to make an exclamation point
against the steeple’s knife

7
My best friend then
Had unruly hair
Like a physical reminder
Of her turbulent life

My best friend then
Had a deep despair
A creature apart
And was no man’s wife

My best friend then
Didn’t even care
Just a life lived on
A butcher’s knife

8
It’s the weekend so
I want to hug
the hours to me
like a favoured teddy bear
and stretch the time
of freedom and safety
across the two days
to make them feel
like forever
Let me kid myself
At least until
the night falls
on the Saturday sky
Let me believe two days
can last forever
at least until then

9
His words were brittle
on a dying breath
Winter was coming
over the nearest hill
treading on soft shoes
Crackling ice and chill
woken in his song
captured in icicles
on the grey of his beard
A reminder
The raven comes soon
on the waft of the wind
to take him away

10
Make me generous in my heart
If nothing else
I would walk upon this earth
With head held high
And how could this be
And how could I
If it wasn’t with a generous heart?

Make me kind in all my words
And make them true
I would do some little good
Before I die
And how could this be
And how could I
If it wasn’t through kindness in my words?

Make me caring in my soul
To all I love
I would warm another’s heart
Just let me try
And how could this be
And how could I
If I wasn’t caring deeply in my soul?

(c) Helen Valentina 2014, All Rights Reserved

This was a challenge to write ten new poems in 20 minutes that mindlovemisery made here:  http://mindlovemisery.wordpress.com/2014/08/29/11-poems-in-20-minutes-and-house-update/

She in turn picked up the challenge from another talented blogger that she links to in her blog post.

It’s a fun exercise so I encourage others to give it a go! 🙂 🙂

Posted in Air, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 16 Comments

Down Town

Image credit: businessinsider.com

Image credit: businessinsider.com

Down town the girls gather
Butterflies freed
From yesterday’s cocoons
And you’d think it might matter
Emotional greed
But everyone grows far too soon

Down town the boys linger
Watchful fools
Practising their brittle words
There’s no ring on the finger
He’s far too cool
Such thoughts of a future absurd

Down town they’re all living
A moment ahead
Lives they may not survive yet to meet
Best be kind and forgiving
In case someone bled
For the chance of such mornings to greet

(c) Helen Valentina, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sharp Relief

Pictures of you
Lighting stridently bold
You’re a negative
In sharp relief

They froze you
In plastic time
A look of shock and awe
Is so pretty
In a way

Out on the streets
Car headlights shine
Your bag is crystal
Your hair on fire

Colours all wrong
Like a ghost you flutter
Butterflies bright
Are so pretty
In a way

(c) Helen Valentina, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shining Example

You were the shining example
The one without flaw
They watched you cavort there
Spectating in awe
They said you held kingdoms
In the palm of your hand
Your style was so effortless
And nothing was planned

When you fell from your pedestal
The whole world was stunned
All the artistry birthed there
All the fashions begun
Fell swift to your infamy
How were we so blind?
Such a shining example
With such darkness behind.

(c) Helen Valentina, All Rights Reserved

Posted in Fire, Poetry | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments